Introduction

Today we are testing the Thermalright Macho, an enormous CPU cooler with six heatpipes and one 140 mm fan. Check it out!

click to enlargeFigure 1: Package

Figure 2 shows the contents of the box: heatsink, fan, a small bag of thermal compound, manual, case sticker, and installation hardware.

click to enlargeFigure 2: Accessories

Figure 3 displays the Thermalright Macho heatsink.

click to enlargeFigure 3: The Thermalright Macho heatsink

This cooler is discussed in detail in the following pages.

The Thermalright Macho

Figure 4 illustrates the front of the heatsink. The first thing we noticed was the big gap between the fins, which makes this heatsink suitable for low pressure fans.

click to enlargeFigure 4: Front view

Figure 5 reveals the side of the large heatsink. Notice that the heatsink is shifted from the base, which allows it to clear the memory sockets’ airspace.

click to enlargeFigure 5: Side view

The rear side of the cooler is presented in Figure 6. The Macho heatsink supports a second fan, but the product doesn’t come with the wire clips needed to install one.

click to enlargeFigure 6: Rear view

In Figure 7, you can see the top of the heatsink. The fins have holes with folded tabs, which help to improve the cooling performance.

click to enlargeFigure 7: Top view

The Thermalright Macho (Cont’d)

The base of the cooler is seen in Figure 8. Notice that the six copper heatpipes don’t touch the CPU directly; they are soldered to a nickel-plated copper base with near-mirrored finishing.

click to enlargeFigure 8: Base

Figure 9 shows the detail of the heatpipes curves.

click to enlargeFigure 9: Heatpipes curves

The 140 mm PWM fan is shown in Figure 10.

click to enlargeFigure 10: Fan

In Figure 11, you can see the Macho with the fan installed. The cooler comes with four rubber pads to be glued on the fan in order to absorb vibrations.

click to enlargeFigure 11: Fan installed

Installation

Figure 12 reveals the backplate used to install the Macho. You must install the screws at the backplate in the holes matching the socket used by your CPU.

click to enlargeFigure 12: Backplate

After putting the backplate on the solder side of the motherboard, you need to attach four thumbnuts from the component side, and then install a metal frame over them, as shown in Figure 13.

click to enlargeFigure 13: Frame installed

After installing the frame, put the cooler over the CPU and hold it in place, screwing the transversal holder to the frame. The “hole” in the heatsink is needed to insert a Phillips screwdriver (you will need a long one) that reaches the second screw. If you don’t have a long screwdriver, you can attach this screw with the wrench that comes with the cooler. However, you will have to remove the motherboard from the case in order to reach it.

click to enlargeFigure 14: Heatsink installed

The last step, installing the fan, is an easy task. You can see it in place in Figure 15.

click to enlargeFigure 15: Fan installed

How We Tested

We tested the cooler with a Core i7-860 CPU (quad-core, 2.8 GHz), which is a socket LGA1156 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power). In order to get higher thermal dissipation, we overclocked it to 3.3 GHz (150 MHz base clock and 22x multiplier), keeping the standard core voltage (Vcore), which was the maximum stable overclock we could make with the stock cooler. Keep in mind that we could have raised the CPU clock more, but to include the stock cooler in our comparison, we needed to use this moderate overclock.

We measured noise and temperature with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all threads, we ran Prime 95 25.11 with the "In-place Large FFTs" option. (In this version, the software uses all available threads.)

We compared the tested cooler to the Intel stock cooler with a copper base (included with the CPU), as well as with other coolers. Note that in the past, we tested coolers with a socket LGA775 CPU, and we retested some "old" coolers with this new methodology. This means you can find different values in older reviews than the values you will read in the next page. Every cooler was tested with the thermal compound that accompanies it.

Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the CPU thermal sensors), using an arithmetic average of the core temperature readings. During the tests, the left panel of the case was open.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the case and video board cooler fans so they wouldn't interfere with the results. This measurement is only for comparison purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which isn't the case here.

Our Tests

The table below presents the results of our measurements. We repeated the same test on all coolers listed below. Each measurement was taken with the CPU at idle and at full load. In the models with a fan supporting PWM, the motherboard controlled the fan speed according to core load and temperature. On coolers with an integrated fan controller, the fan was set at the minimum speed on the idle test and at full speed on the full load test.

Idle Processor

Processor at Full Load

Cooler

Room Temp.

Noise

Speed

Core Temp.

Noise

Speed

Core Temp.

Intel stock (socket LGA1156)

14 °C

44 dBA

1700 rpm

46 °C

54 dBA

2500 rpm

90 °C

Cooler Master Hyper TX3 G1

14 °C

47 dBA

2050 rpm

33 °C

56 dBA

2900 rpm

62 °C

Zalman CNPS10X Extreme

14 °C

45 dBA

1400 rpm

27 °C

53 dBA

1950 rpm

51 °C

Thermaltake Silent 1156

14 °C

44 dBA

1200 rpm

38 °C

49 dBA

1750 rpm

69 °C

Noctua NH-D14

14 °C

49 dBA

1250 rpm

27 °C

49 dBA

1250 rpm

53 °C

Zalman CNPS10X Performa

14 °C

46 dBA

1500 rpm

28 °C

52 dBA

1950 rpm

54 °C

Prolimatech Megahalems

14 °C

40 dBA

750 rpm

27 °C

60 dBA

2550 rpm

50 °C

Thermaltake Frio

14 °C

46 dBA

1450 rpm

27 °C

60 dBA

2500 rpm

50 °C

Prolimatech Samuel 17

14 °C

40 dBA

750 rpm

40 °C

60 dBA

2550 rpm

63 °C

Zalman CNPS8000A

18 °C

43 dBA

1400 rpm

39 °C

54 dBA

2500 rpm

70 °C

Spire TherMax Eclipse II

14 °C

55 dBA

2200 rpm

28 °C

55 dBA

2200 rpm

53 °C

Scythe Ninja3

17 °C

39 dBA

700 rpm

32 °C

55 dBA

1800 rpm

57 °C

Corsair A50

18 °C

52 dBA

1900 rpm

33 °C

52 dBA

1900 rpm

60 °C

Thermaltake Jing

18 °C

44 dBA

850 rpm

34 °C

49 dBA

1300 rpm

60 °C

GlacialTech Alaska

18 °C

43 dBA

1150 rpm

36 °C

51 dBA

1600 rpm

60 °C

Deepcool Gamer Storm

18 °C

43 dBA

1100 rpm

35 °C

48 dBA

1600 rpm

62 °C

Corsair A70

26 °C

56 dBA

1900 rpm

40 °C

56 dBA

1900 rpm

65 °C

Deepcool Ice Blade Pro

23 °C

45 dBA

1200 rpm

38 °C

52 dBA

1500 rpm

64 °C

AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2

23 °C

47 dBA

1750 rpm

44 °C

51 dBA

2100 rpm

77 °C

Corsair H70

27 °C

60 dBA

1900 rpm

37 °C

60 dBA

1900 rpm

61 °C

Zalman CNPS9900 Max

27 °C

55 dBA

1600 rpm

38 °C

58 dBA

1750 rpm

63 °C

Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 LP

25 °C

45 dBA

1700 rpm

51 °C

49 dBA

1950 rpm

91 °C

CoolIT Vantage

26 °C

60 dBA

2500 rpm

37 °C

60 dBA

2500 rpm

62 °C

Deepcool Ice Matrix 600

25 °C

46 dBA

1100 rpm

41 °C

53 dBA

1300 rpm

69 °C

Titan Hati

26 °C

46 dBA

1500 rpm

40 °C

57 dBA

2450 rpm

68 °C

Arctic Cooling Freezer 13

27 °C

49 dBA

1950 rpm

41 °C

53 dBA

2300 rpm

70 °C

Noctua NH-C14

26 °C

52 dBA

1300 rpm

37 °C

52 dBA

1300 rpm

61 °C

Intel XTS100H

26 °C

49 dBA

1200 rpm

42 °C

64 dBA

2600 rpm

68 °C

Zalman CNPS5X SZ

23 °C

52 dBA

2250 rpm

38 °C

57 dBA

2950 rpm

69 °C

Thermaltake SlimX3

21 °C

50 dBA

2700 rpm

46 °C

50 dBA

2750 rpm

99 °C

Cooler Master Hyper 101

21 °C

50 dBA

2600 rpm

38 °C

57 dBA

3300 rpm

71 °C

Antec Kühler H2O 620

19 °C

52 dBA

1400 rpm

34 °C

55 dBA

1400 rpm

58 °C

Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro

20 °C

46 dBA

1100 rpm

36 °C

49 dBA

1300 rpm

62 °C

GlacialTech Siberia

22 °C

49 dBA

1400 rpm

34 °C

49 dBA

1400 rpm

61 °C

Evercool Transformer 3

18 °C

46 dBA

1800 rpm

33 °C

51 dBA

2250 rpm

65 °C

Zalman CNPS11X Extreme

20 °C

51 dBA

1850 rpm

34 °C

56 dBA

2050 rpm

61 °C

Thermaltake Frio OCK

15 °C

44 dBA

1000 rpm

27 °C

64 dBA

2200 rpm

51 °C

Prolimatech Genesis

18 °C

49 dBA

1050 rpm

30 °C

49 dBA

1050 rpm

54 °C

Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME Rev. 2

15 °C

41 dBA

1050 rpm

32 °C

44 dBA

1400 rpm

60 °C

NZXT HAVIK 140

16 °C

48 dBA

1250 rpm

29 °C

49 dBA

1250 rpm

55 °C

Antec Kühler H2O 920

18 °C

41 dBA

650 rpm

29 °C

64 dBA

2500 rpm

49 °C

Zalman CNP7X LED

18 °C

45 dBA

1950 rpm

33 °C

48 dBA

2150 rpm

58 °C

EVGA Superclock

14 °C

43 dBA

1300 rpm

27 °C

58 dBA

2350 rpm

47 °C

Evercool Transformer 4

15 °C

46 dBA

1500 rpm

26 °C

53 dBA

1950 rpm

52 °C

Xigmatek Dark Knight

18 °C

47 dBA

1700 rpm

30 °C

53 dBA

2150 rpm

57 °C

Xigmatek Aegir

15 °C

44 dBA

1500 rpm

27 °C

50 dBA

1950 rpm

52 °C

Cooler Master GeminII S524

16 °C

45 dBA

1300 rpm

29 °C

53 dBA

1800 rpm

58 °C

Enermax ETS-T40-TA

16 °C

40 dBA

1050 rpm

28 °C

48 dBA

1800 rpm

55 °C

Corsair H80

14 °C

42 dBA

2150 rpm

25 °C

52 dBA

2150 rpm

47 °C

Akasa Venom Voodoo

13 °C

40 dBA

1000 rpm

26 °C

48 dBA

1500 rpm

51 °C

Xigmatek Thor's Hammer

15 °C

44 dBA

1500 rpm

30 °C

50 dBA

2000 rpm

55 °C

Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM

19 °C

45 dBA

1400 rpm

30 °C

52 dBA

1900 rpm

54 °C

Xigmatek Loki

17 °C

44 dBA

1850 rpm

34 °C

55 dBA

2750 rpm

60 °C

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

14 °C

44 dBA

1250 rpm

26 °C

50 dBA

1750 rpm

50 °C

Xigmatek Gaia

17 °C

44 dBA

1250 rpm

32 °C

46 dBA

1500 rpm

61 °C

Rosewill RCX-ZAIO-92

21 °C

48 dBA

2050 rpm

37 °C

54 dBA

2600 rpm

68 °C

Thermalright True Spirit 120

16 °C

41 dBA

1000 rpm

30 °C

46 dBA

1400 rpm

55 °C

Corsair H100

20 °C

55 dBA

2000 rpm

29 °C

59 dBA

2000 rpm

50 °C

Zalman CNPS12X

20 °C

47 dBA

1200 rpm

31 °C

47 dBA

1200 rpm

58 °C

Thermalright Macho

23 °C

41 dBA

1100 rpm

36 ° C

44 dBA

1300 rpm

61 °C

In the graph below, at full load you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the CPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the cooler.

Main Specifications

The main specifications for the Thermalright Macho CPU cooler include:

Conclusions

Like the Zalman CNPS12X and the Akasa Venom Voodoo, the Thermalright Macho is big but quiet. As is the case with both the other coolers, it seems to be focused more on silence than on ultimate performance, presenting a good but not extreme cooling performance.

The Thermalright Macho is one of the quietest coolers we tested so far, showing at the same time a good cooling performance and a suitable price tag. Because of that, this gentle giant receives the Hardware Secrets Silver Award.

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